WARNING:
The opinions expressed and linked to in this blog are not necessarily mine (anymore).

My ideas are constantly changing as I learn. Sometimes they even change midway through writing a post.

Sunday, December 12

More on Parents Not Breeders

In browsing through my blog, I noticed something in the Brats! post that bothered me. I suggested that the people spending their time venting about "breeders" and "brats" would do better to encourage people to become parents not breeders. I think I missed explaining the point of the site and also failed to mention a particular problem I have with their views.

First, the point of the site, it seems, is to complain about the idea that people generally "expect" to have children and expect other people to have children. I think I can agree with that part of it. I think people shouldn't assume they're going to have children but should only do so after carefully considering and preparing for being parents (for example, they should have a nice chunk of money in the bank and have spent time working with children). That's not what I did, but hey, hindsight's 20/20. I think it's reasonable to want people to be a bit more sensitive about people who don't have children.

Second, I think the posters have some wrong ideas about what they should be able to expect from other people and what should be expected of them. It doesn't matter what their opinion is about whether certain people should have children or not. It does matter that the children exist, are relatively innocent, and that it is good to help and be patient with innocents. Regardless of what it says in the FAQ, some of the people on the site seem to have more compassion for animals than young humans.

I think one of the things that especially bothered me about the site was the snearing at the suggestion that "children are the future". Ok, so maybe it gets overused, but that doesn't make it false.